For many women, fertility can be a frustrating and stressful journey filled with unanswered questions. Some turn to cannabis to help deal with the stress, but now, a new study hints that the drug might actually make fertility issues worse. “Some people might think that it’s a plant, so therefore it’s natural, therefore it might not be as risky as other drugs,” says Cyntia Duval, a clinical embryologist at a Toronto clinic called CReATE Fertility Centre and lead author of the study. “I think people with ovaries need to know how it can potentially affect their oocytes”—the technical term for immature egg cells.Published September 9 in Nature Communications, the study is among the first to examine cannabis and female fertility. It’s still unclear how this could play out in the body, whether different forms of cannabis present different risks, and how the drug compares to more established risky substances like alcohol. To read the full story.